What Lies in Murky Waters
by Jason Hes
Summary: The story of the abused vengeful ghost has rocked horror history. Now, a new story- an abused boy in a derelict block of houses is seen rummaging about. However, who so much as steps a foot in one of the houses in the block falls pray to a menacing curse!
1. Chapter 1

What Lies in Murky Waters

Chapter One- Destination

The move to Tokyo was definitely an act of stupidity.

Not only did they, the Dawn family, have not a single clue how to speak the actual language of the Japanese, but they did not understand it either. Why they couldn't have just moved to Australia or any other English-speaking country was a question that went unanswered amongst their family members and friends, however, Frank Dawn, the father of Jane and James and husband to Veronique Dawn, had let on, before leaving on the plane, that the family left for one thing- Japan's fine healthy cuisine.

Rubbish.

They only wanted to get away from the negativity of the country they had left, the politics, the corruption and the crime, but one must understand that the Dawn family, although wanting to get out of that company as soon as possible, did not feel the need to run the country down into the gravel like many other people who had emigrated. They wanted to leave on a good note, for the country had been good to them.

But now, landing on Asian soil and arriving in an alien airport, the family couldn't help but give each other looks of worry and dissatisfaction (in truth, James Dawn had been sadistically hoping that the plane would have crashed into the sea as they passed over it, for what his parents had done by forcing him to leave his friends and school behind), and with a deep breath, left the security of the plane- the last trace of western luxury, and entered the new world.

People walked past it with a look of fear clouding their faces.

Birds steered clear of it.

Trees grew bent away from it.

And at night, the windows didn't reflect the moon- but the blackness of its own depths.

It infested the neighborhood in the night time, making innocent passers-by succumb to its evil.

Those who took one step inside it- disappeared.

Those who took one step in the alley outside it- disappeared.

The only way to avoid its evil was to map out a round-about route carefully created to steer away from it and what it brought with it.

It wasn't only the house anymore- oh no, it had become too big to cram itself inside a minute Asian styled house. It wasn't just the alley outside the house either. It was the whole block of houses itself.

And it waited. Waited in hungry anticipation for the next victims. For, although many had been warned about the house and the block, one could not warn the entire population of what evil existed there… and it was only a matter of time before an uniformed soul trespassed into the forbidden area of the curse.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two- Isolation

"So Miss Electra, are you enjoying your stay here in Tokyo?" asked the small frail-looking reporter, who stood before the famous film actress with a large microphone while a heavy fat camera-man stood poised to attention behind the reporter, documenting everything Electra was about to say onto a film real that could make or break her career in no time.

Electra grinned, and said, "of course I am. I love Japan. It is beautiful. So beautiful- that I plan to stay here for a while longer after my movie is finished with its filming."

The reporter raised her eyebrows in surprise, "really? For how long exactly are you planning to stay after your movie?"

"Perhaps a month… perhaps a year… perhaps a lifetime, who knows?"

The reporter gasped in surprise as Electra greeted them farewell, before making her way into the train station that was situated right underneath them where the miniature interview had taken place. The reporter watched in shocked surprise as she watched the multi-billionaire actress walk down the steps and into the underground, before turning back to the camera and in Japanese said, "Well, you heard it. Talented actress Electra possibly plans to stay in our little country! Never ceasing to amaze anyone, Electra will definitely amaze you in her next shocking feature, 'Curse of the Attic Ghost'- a must see for all horror fans! That's all the time we have to talk about Horror Queen Electra, so we shall cut to a break, but afterwards, we have a special treat for you- Miss Kuriyama Chiaki shall be speaking to us about her latest film- Dead Rising'!"

_That was tiring,_ thought Electra as she lazily found an empty bench to sit on when she entered the subway station after escaping the reporter, _who would have thought this lifestyle to be so exhausting?_

It had all started when she was 17 years old. She had performed on stage at a state theatre in her country, in the famous musical 'The Phantom of the Opera'. Later, the following year, her agent called her while she was studying for finals at school, informing her of the role of Cleopatra that no-one had been able to nab yet. The director was a very picky and irritable man, and so the agency's last resort lay in the hands of a girl trying to pass her exams. 

She auditioned, but to her annoyance as she was trying to receive at least two distinctions and the director turned out to actually love both Electra and the Cleopatra she had presented to him. She was cast immediately. After one of the performances, towards the end of Anthony and Cleopatra's running, Electra was introduced to a television director who asked her if she wouldn't mind performing in a groundbreaking new local show that used a green screen instead of usual locations. It was entitled 'Innocent Days' and Electra was personally asked by the director himself, to play the lead character Genevieve. Electra saw this as an accomplishment and couldn't say no. Next thing she knew, Electra was asked to be a lead model for a brand of expensive internationally made perfumes called 'Emily Vale'. She had more than a thousand photographs taken of her, each with a separate bottle of the deliciously scented perfumes, and was being paid millions for each picture- and she received free Emily Vale perfumes! 

Life couldn't get better- until she stumbled on an audition was an international horror movie about an axe-wielding madman that tortured young pretty models.

As Electra was already a model at the time, the directors wanted her to perform in the movie, and soon Electra was shot into fame and loving every minute of it!

And now, she was in Japan. Filming for her fourth film- and her fourth horror feature. Although Electra loved horror films and acting in them, she couldn't shake off the irritation of people referring to her as the so-called "Horror Queen". But at least the pay was good- she truly couldn't complain about _that_.

Sitting by alone in the almost empty subway station, all the memories and thoughts flooded Electra's mind. At last she had time to think! But this wouldn't last long. When the station filled up with people, some would want her autograph, some would confess her undying love for her, and others would beg her to be in her next feature film.

She had to get away from that! But how, everyone knew her and she couldn't have her peace, the peace she truly needed. There had to have been somewhere in Japan that wasn't filled to the brim with fans and stalkers… but where?

Suddenly, walking down the steps of the train station was a group of school girls, dressed in their sailor uniforms and clutching brown satchels in their hands. There was about five of them, and two were on their cellular phones, the other three gossiping about random boys and new anime' shows. Electra smiled at this, and remembered how back in her school days she did exactly the same things with her friends- talk about boys, television shows and cellular phones. But Electra shook her head, suddenly frustrated with herself. She was nineteen for crying out loud! Nineteen! And already she was acting like a woman of forty! This was not on at all. As she was about to scold herself about acting like an elderly woman, one of the school girls from the group of girls that had arrived in the station, tapped Electra on the arm.

Electra looked up, jumping slightly as she had been lost in her own thoughts.

"Konichiwa!"

Electra smiled at the girl, and replied, "konichiwa."

The girl smiled nervously, then added in Japanese, "My name is Megumi! I am a big fan of yours- just like my friends over there…" she pointed to the group of girls who giggled in excitement and shyness, "they are quite shy so they dared me to come over to you for an autograph."

Electra laughed and said in Japanese, "that is so funny! Gosh, so I scare people now… Hey, why stop at autographs? We can have pictures too you know!"

Megumi's eyes lit up in delight, "really?! Oh thank you, thank you!" She called to her group of friends to come over to Electra and the friends quickly ran towards her, chattering happily, and holding out cameras and cellular phones and magazines for her to sign.

After the picture taking, Electra signed their bags and afterwards Megumi asked her to sign an article in her magazine about Electra's biography. Electra grinned and gladly signed the last page of the article, happy with how good she looked in the photographs in the article. As she finished writing her signature and her little inspirational message to Megumi, Electra's eye caught hold of another write up in the magazine which was situated after her article. 

"_MORE DISAPPEAR NEAR BLOCK OF HOUSES__"_

Electra quickly finished the message and asked Megumi what the next article was about. Although Electra could speak and understand Japanese, reading it was quite a mission to her.

Megumi shrugged her shoulders and said, "Oh, it's just a local myth that has been going around for some time. But it isn't true, my friends and I went there two days ago, and we haven't disappeared yet!"

Electra thought for a minute, then said, "where is it exactly?"

Megumi looked at Electra strangely, "you actually want to go there? It's so boring! It's just a couple of houses that have been abandoned, and a couple of derelict cats. That's it."

Electra grinned, "abandoned? So there is a chance that I can buy there?"

Megumi rolled her eyes, "you are so rich- you don't have to buy there!"

"Well just tell me where it is Megumi…"

Megumi sighed, "I forgot where it is exactly… but here, take the magazine, it might tell you something there… just let me rip out your article first… like I said, I'm a big fan!"

Electra laughed, feeing a great wave of relief wash over her, as she finally found a place where isolation was guaranteed.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three- Dislocation

The Dawn family stared at it with mild surprise.

The house itself was somewhat a Japanese-styled house with a western influence and was painted white. The paint was old, giving the house its cracked surface looking like veined skin. The garden was small, but appropriate, with miniature hedges that hadn't seemed to have been taken care of for quite a while. Weeds grew out of the cracks of the thin pathway that led to the porch of the house. A small waist-sized fence surrounded the tiny garden and an old rusted gate that was sealed with a chain of metal and a thick iron lock stood in the middle of it.

This was to be 'home' for the next number of years. Terrific.

"Where the heck is that home realtor?" exclaimed James irritably, kicking at the gravel of the alley in between the house and the next block of houses, causing the dirt to rise into the air in thick dust clouds, "wasn't he supposed to be here, like, ten minutes ago?"

Frank frowned, disapproving of his son's attitude and actions, "stop kicking the ground James… and remember, we are in Japan now… they take their time with everything."

"That is why they live so long," stated Veronique, taking off her sunglasses and examining the family's surroundings better, "this certainly is a god-awful neighborhood…"

"It's not!" snapped Frank suddenly, then after realizing what he had just said out loud and in such a tone, he quickly said, "it's lovely… homey…"

Veronique frowned at her husband, who now had his back turned to her as he felt the texture of the rusted gate. What had gotten into him? He never snapped before- even at the children. He was so irritable, and it was only suddenly too on the train trip to Tokyo that he developed a mood. Veronique didn't like it. She made a mental note to talk to her husband about it later after the house realtor showed them around the horrid little house… whenever the realtor decided to pitch up that is.

"Mother," Jane said, then queried, "may I take a walk up and down this alley? I want to see what type of people we might be living with, if we buy this place."

Veronique smiled, wrinkles suddenly sprouting from the centre of her face, "certainly. Oh, and if you see that good-for-nothing realtor, give us a shout."

"I will," smiled Jane and began her brisk, yet slow walk down the alley.

It was towards the middle of the afternoon, and the long shadows of the trees and houses seemed to fuse together, enwrapping all who stood in the alley at that time of the day. Jane admired the houses. Some were quiet, with beautiful gardens, others Jane could hear voices of children or adults inside of.

One house, however, made Jane stop and stare at its looming body of decay. This house seemed more neglected than the one that was to be shown to them by the house realtor. Weeds grew in every direction, and the fence that surrounded it was mouldy and on the edge of collapsing altogether. This particular house was only two houses away from the one they were to be introduced to and in some cases looked the same as their house, but multiplied. For instance, the tattered garden, but the garden of this decayed house was far worse than that of theirs. The paint was also peeling off the walls and generally looked more derelict than their house. It was like a carbon copy of the house they were waiting to be shown, which for some reason made Jane feel shivers crawl up and down her spine.

Suddenly, while analyzing the standards of the house and comparing it to the one her family were standing outside of, something in the garden caught Jane's eye in the corner and she quickly turned her head in that direction to see what it was.

An animal perhaps? Probably, it didn't come as a surprise to Jane if it was one, such as a cat or even a dog. However, there was movement again, and Jane noticed to her amazement that it wasn't an animal that was crawling around in the thicket of the garden- it was a boy.

Jane, not knowing what she was doing, called out to the boy, "hey! What are you doing in there?"

The boy stopped his scratching around and looked up at the girl with large dark eyes as black as coal. He was small, with a tanned olive skin that all Asian people seemed to wear. He had short pin-straight hair and sported very plain clothes… covered in holes and patches of red paint by the look of things. The boy's arms were badly scratched and bruised and his lips cut.

Jane gasped, "my god! Do you live here? Are you alright?"

The boy just stared that empty stare at Jane.

"Are you alright? You look hurt!" she said, and quickly climbed over the crumbling gate and landed feet first onto the ground on the other side of the gate.

It wriggled in absolute excitement as it felt the presence of another inside the forbidden area. Finally, after days it seemed, it would be fed again… it could taste it now… it could feel the presence inside it… being consumed by its darkness and hate and pain. The presence would feed it forever… and all because the presence slipped into forbidden land. It moaned in utter euphoria.

Jane jumped in shock when she heard a low morbid moan erupt from inside the decayed house. What was that, that had just moaned? An animal?

Quickly, Jane turned back to the boy, only to notice that the boy himself had disappeared. Jane sighed, the poor boy had probably run off because of whatever had moaned… had the 'moaner' been the cause of the boy's wounds?

Slowly, Jane quickly climbed over the fence again and walked out onto the alley quickly trying to get as far away from that creepy house and the creature inside it that had moaned in such a disturbing way.

Jane closed her eyes as she neared her parents and her sibling, trying to forget about the boy and the moan and… the house.

Somehow right at that moment, Jane, who never truly believed in God before, prayed to him that her parents would not be interested in the house and that they would find another house… far away from whatever lurked in the other house.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four- Realization

Electra yawned to herself as she briskly walked down the street towards the block of houses mentioned in the magazine Megumi had given her, on a crisp Sunday evening.

Although it had seemed like a good idea at the time to leave her trendy apartment in Shibuya late in the day to visit the houses that were said to be 'haunted', it didn't seem like a good idea now as she traveled closer to the block of houses and as the day grew darker.

But, leaving at that time was truly not her fault. In fact, Electra would have arrived at the block much earlier- had it not been for the usual group of fans demanding photographs, confessing their undying love and so on. Electra, trying to keep up her good reputation of being a friendly celebrity, promised herself she would only sign about four autographs, after all, she did want to be at the block of houses quickly. However, four became eight. Eight, became twelve. And soon, twelve became thirty four.

After much time reading and re-reading the article with a Japanese-to-English dictionary, Electra had received valuable information as to where the houses themselves were situated and the stories behind them.

The houses were located on the outskirts of Tokyo, about twenty minutes walking distance away from the actual city. That was definitely not a problem for Electra. She needed the exercise. But the problem was the history that came with the houses in that block.

It started off innocently enough. The houses in the block were built one right after the other during the nineteen-twenties by a man named Derek Nagasaki a half Japanese, half American who seemed to think that he owned all of Japan. The houses were once seen as luxurious and only the truly wealthy lived in them.

But times had changed, and so did people that accommodated the houses. From the truly wealthy that had graced the houses walls, followed the middle-classed families of a size of ten, and after the middle-classed families came the poor and underpaid. The houses which were once seen as luxurious had actually turned into living areas which people who had naughty children that weren't doing well in school, that if they didn't study long enough, they would have to live in houses like _those_.

At least Derek Nagasaki had keeled over and died from a heart attack many years before the houses started to loose status in Japan, otherwise it wouldn't have been his heart that would have killed him- but a bullet.

However, things took a change for the better when police in the area had raided one of the houses on the block, and had found it to have been used as an illegal brothel and drug house. Although not see as a good thing back then, the raid did help to get rid of the wrong-doings that were going on inside the house, and an architect, fresh out of university by the name of Mizuho Hanazaki took pity on Derek's block of houses, and bought up the whole block, which didn't cost much at all, and rehabilitated all the houses, making them fit for people of at least a middle-class background to live in once more.

This happiness seemed to last for a decade when suddenly the most bizarre and grotesque murder had taken place in one of the houses.

A family of three was found dead, each found in different parts of the house. The wife was found in the attic, with her neck broken and stab wounds all over her body which had been wrapped in plastic. The young boy and the household's pet cat were both found in the bath, drowned. As for the father whom many blame for the murders of the boy and his mother, was found dead outside the house, in the alleyway. Some said it was cardiac arrest, others say his heart died out on him for a different reason.

For a while, that seemed to be the only negative event that had shaken up the block of houses and the whole of Tokyo, but a few years later, the sensation had died out again and everything was back to normal. There was a new family living in the house of the murder and people stopped talking about it. The past was the past after all, right? But then suddenly, as if reassuring the public that the house wasn't finished with it's bad luck, the new family disappeared and for some days had been notified missing, until they were found by police with the help of a care taker from a local old-age home in Tokyo. They were found dead, but how they were found was spine-chilling in itself- the wife and husband were found dead in the attic, just as before, and the old woman who was the husband's mother, had died in her room in the bottom of the house, where the care-taker was found, unable to register what had happened at all.

The deaths of both families of the household caused many residents of nearby towns and such places to gossip about the house. Some thought of it to be some sort of cursed area, others believed that a serial killer lurked in between the walls of the house and hungrily waited for new residents to arrive. But, just like the last time, the rumors disappeared like smoke in the wind and the world of the block of flats returned to normal, and the house remained empty and quiet for a while. Until only five years ago when another family moved in, this time a foreign family from the same country as Electra was from. They hadn't been there for more than three months when the neighborhood and block were shaken up again with a gruesome scene of blood and gore. But it wasn't only the house that the bodies were found. It was the whole block- everyone was dead or either missing. One man was found on the roof of his house, nibbling away at the skin of his fingers and muttering to a person by the name of 'Kayoko'. He disappeared soon after. Since then, or so the article describes, whoever lives or even walks onto the grounds of that house or even passes the alleyway of that block itself, is doomed to live a life of the cursed.

Although Electra was quite shocked by the graphic history of the block, she truly did love a good horror story, and even though she had second thoughts about visiting the block of houses, the story behind the houses and what had happened only fueled her curiosity and fascination of the block of houses, making her want to see them for herself even more.

As Electra saw the block of houses in the not-too-far distance, she picked up speed and quickly changed from a walk into a jog as the day slowly opened up the sky for night. As Electra got closer towards the block of houses, she couldn't help but notice how the environment changed around her.

Houses looked ransacked and dilapidated. Trees were dead and grasping onto their last leaf. Cars were left open and rusted on the sides of the cracked and empty road and garbage was scattered everywhere. Posters with the words "LOST" printed on them in Japanese were stuck on every fence and window of the empty houses. Some posters were stuck on the rusted cars. Each poster displayed a different head, a different face. There were thousands, and by the look of things the people had not been found. Perhaps this was a bad idea…

"I hope you know what you are doing," a voice from behind Electra said, scaring her and making Electra twirl around on the spot to face whoever had spoken to her, "this place has a reputation…"

Electra turned to face a young man, about her age of twenty-three, was a Caucasian with thick brown hair that was combed back and long sideburns on each side of his face that met at his chin. Although slightly rugged and stocky, the man was quite attractive.

"I don't know what you mean," said Electra, pretending to play dumb. Hopefully this man didn't know who Electra was, but he seemed to be a foreigner due to his accent which sounded slightly European.

"If you don't know, let the 'Lost' posters educate you," the man said bluntly, frowning at Electra's lack of knowledge of the area.

Electra smiled meekly and looked around the desolate street, pretending to view each and every poster, "bad area, huh?"

"The worst," the man said, "I suggest you leave."

Electra frowned at this, "do you own this area?"

The man stared at her.

Electra continued, "…then I suggest you don't tell me what to do," and turned her back to him and slowly began to walk away.

The man seemed to take a humorous take on what Electra said, and with a sly sneer replied, "…even movie stars die here…"

Shocked at what the man had said to her, and sensing a threat, Electra spun around again, and gasped in surprise.

The man was no longer there.

Had he walked away? _No_, Electra thought, _I would have seen him. Ran? Yes. That must have been it- the man must have run away, and hid behind something, just to be a jerk and scare me…_

But, what caused Electra to cry out in shock wasn't the audacity of the young man and his blunt attitude, but one of the 'lost' posters that had been stuck to a nearby fence that waved in the wind… with the face of the young man Electra had just been confronted by.


End file.
